5 Simple Steps To Making The Perfect Cup Of Tea

It’s no secret that the Irish love a decent cup of tea, however, most people can’t agree on what it takes to make the perfect cuppa. Most people think that when they get the colour right they’ve got the whole thing covered. Wrong! Squeezing the tea bag or adding more milk is all well and good but just because of the colours right doesn’t mean you have the right flavour or body.

We have gone through the trouble of testing out all the different methods (daily), and highlighted below the only steps you need to make a great cup of tea, slowly and patiently!

1. Fill your kettle: Use fresh tap water, the oxygen in the water is really important to creating a good cuppa because this releases the flavour.

2. Boil the kettle: It’s important to pour the kettle the moment it finishes boiling, if you walk away you’ll come back to a cooling kettle and that’s not cool.

If this does occur it's better to use that water than to reboil as boiling again will take off the oxygen. (See point 1).

3. Add water: Pour the boiling water over the tea bag and brew for 3 minutes, this gives the perfect amount of time to properly develop the flavour.

It’s best to just sit back and relax at this stage, don’t shake or squeeze the bag, just be patient.

For green tea, you shouldn’t brew for longer than 2 minutes because it gets bitter.

4. Add milk: As odd as it sounds it is historically correct to pour the milk first, however, for us it just makes more sense to add it at this stage so you can adjust it to your liking.

5. Add extra: Most tea purists frown upon adding sugar or honey but we’re more interested in you enjoying your tea, so as long as you’ve followed the previous steps this can only add to your cuppa.

If you’re putting sugar in, be sure to use the same spoon for scooping sugar out of the jar and for stirring the tea. This brings good luck.